Misunderstood Tears: The Diary of Draco Malfoy
by Ink Dove
Summary: Draco never wanted to be evil. Nor did his parents. They just wanted to live. And to save their lives, they had to hide that yearning for peace. Now the truth is told, and nothing is left unwritten.
1. Entry One: Losing my Life

July 9th, 1994

Dear Diary,

The whole world seems to be collapsing. It's my birthday, and I got my presents, my cake, my party, but I never got one thing. My parents. Every birthday they took me somewhere together for just one day, just hte three of us. Now, it's just me, alone in my room, my new presents of expensive artifacts and neat gadgets sitting ignored int heir boxes. Ever since I got my Dark Mark, I've never been able to sleep. It's taking a toll on me, but what do I care? It's not like anybody would care, so why should I? All I care about is trying to get my old life back.

Now I'm starting to remember when Potter and I almost shook hands in the first year, right before the Sorting. I wanted to be in Gryffindor. I wanted to break free of the Malfoy curse. I wanted to be his friend. Draco and Harry, the coolest duo Hogwarts ever saw. But when that handshake, that one attempt to tell somebody good at heart about my life, was refused, I hid my heartbreak under a smirk. Getting sorted into Slytherin was not my heartbreak, no, but the refusal of a friend. I know that guys don't cry, but my tears fall upon the pages of my diary as I write this.

The day, last year, when Hermione slapped me, was another heartbreak. I wasn't going to cause any trouble. That was just another mask for my tears. But the hatred in her eyes ... it was almost the same as Father's when I was caught playing with his wand. I was only three then. He is always angry inside, angry at himself and ready to vent his rage at anybody. But, like me, he keeps it in most of the time. He hides it under a smirk or a glare, trying to tell the world that nothing in the world was wrong with the Malfoys. We're just ... misunderstood.

Mother is knocking at my door now. She sits down beside me, holding me while I cry. She doesn't look at the diary, she knows about it but also knows not to talk about it. As I spill my tears into the shoulder of her Parisian dress, I feel her grip tense. She knows something's wrong, I can feel the heat radiating off of her left arm, as well as mine. The Dark Lord is coming to life, she says, and abruptly she leaves, letting me collapse onto my bed, letting me cry myself to sleep.

Sincerely,

Draco Lucius Malfoy


	2. Entry Two: Another Heartbreak

June 11th, 1994

Dear Diary,

Mother and Father came home in tears. I tried to get some information out of them about what happened after they left to witness the resurrection of the Dark Lord, but they would just shake their heads and walk away. I'm worried that something went wrong. Mother is very frail, now, from what I expect to be the Cruciatus Curse. Father locks himself in his study for hours, and when I listen at the door, I only hear him crying. They won't even talk at all about anything, according to the events of the past hour. We were sitting at the table, eating, when Gordy, my favorite house elf, whispered something in their ears. Mother nearly fainted, and Father ran off to his study. Helplessly, my Mother climbed the stairs, her legs shaking still from the force of the Cruciatus Curse.

I'm on my balcony overlooking the front gardens, now. It's seven o'clock now, for the old clock in the hall is chiming. I've always wondered why trees and flowers always grow, even in the darkest of times. There is a patch of Heaven's Mirror beneath our willow tree. I heard that they're called Deathlamps by some, but I don't see them as evil. The flowers did nothing wrong to deserve such a hideous alter ego.

Father is leaving the house now. He walks slowly, his shoulders heaving with grief, and he crosses to the pond beside the Heaven's Mirror. The flowers light up his face, and in his hands I see a book. He drops it into the pond and leaves, now overcome with tears. Collapsing in the flowers, he drops his head into his hands, and I can watch it no more. I head downstairs, out the front door, and to my father's side. He looks up at me and grabs my shoulder, pulling me down to his level. He tells me that You-Know-Who tried to kill my mother on my birthday. He almost killed her in front of Harry, in front of him, and in front of every Death Eater who showed their face. He tells me that her chances of recovering fully are slim. He tells me that You-Know-Who had attempted to torture her to death because of me. Because he found out I cried.

Now, kneeling beside my father in the dead of night, I realise something: my father needs to kill my mother on behalf of He Who Must Not Be Named's failure. I know it, and as the night goes on, I think he knows his assignment too.

Sincerely,

Draco Lucius Malfoy


	3. Entry Three: Confessions

June 11th, 1994

Dear Diary,

I have hit rock bottom. Father tried to talk to Mother, which resulted in her leaving the room so abruptly and with such speed that I could hear her dress tearing. She knows, I can tell. My parents used to love each other. I just wish for once that that was still the reality. Father is still in the drawing room, drinking by the fire. That's how he eases his pain. He gets drunk so he won't remember what happened. My mother is also sitting by the fire in another room. She won't go to bed like the doctor said she was supposed to, she won't take her pills to make her stronger. She just stares into those flames, wishing, like me, that time could reverse itself.

I dug the book out of the Willow Pond. It was a ledger of every mission my father ever accomplished. Everything was still intact, and it was still legible after I dried it off. He also had records of conversations between him and You-Know-Who, and small newspapaer cutouts about Him. In the back I found a picture of us three sitting in Moonlight Plaza on my birthday five years ago. It's open beside me now, to that very picture. The younger me stares up at me, smiling. My parents are smiling, too, and as shoppers pass by the fountain we're sitting on, The nine-year-old me looks around, admiring the beauty of the world which is no more. That was the last year the plaza existed, for You-Know-Who blew it up along with all of what I loved.

I have to go back to school tomorrow. It's almost like a different world there. My bedroom here is private and a retreat. The Slytherins back at Hogwarts are always pranking, always bending rules. Staring up at the green canopy of my four-poster bed there is the only way I can escape the real world and dive into the past through memory. I just want to stay home, yet I just want to run away from here at the same time. My parents avoid each other like the plague, and at school nobody cares. A deep, plummeting feeling is now slumbering in the pit of my stomach, and I just want to go back. To be understood.

Sincerely,

Draco Lucius Malfoy


	4. Entry Four: Back to Hogwarts

July 12th, 1994

Dear Diary,

I went back to Hogwarts today. It ws like the heavy weight pressing in upon me was at it's peak as I entered the Entrance Hall. There were many stares, many whispers. Where had I been? I was not guided by my parents, no, they were too emotionally damaged at what happened at the graveyard to even eat. I was guided by my aunt Bellatrix. Her curly hair, frizzy and fading to grey, bounced along her back as she walked me down the halls. At six-foot-two, she was towering over me and the rest of whoever was in the hall at the time. Everybody shrank away from her slightly tan skin, her piercing brown eyes, her neatly chosen summer attire. It was like she was an infection, one gaze and you were suddenly threatened by an unknown poison, on the verge of death.

Crabbe and Goyle, my supposed friends, weren't waiting in the Slytherin common room for me. They were obviously raiding the kitchens like a bunch of thieves, wolfing down cupcakes and cookies at breakneck speed. Aunt Bella nodded to the other Slytherins, leaving with an almost practiced exit, her hair untidily bouncing behind her. I sank onto the sofa, dropping my leather travelling tote and flinging off my cloak with an arrogant flick of the wrists. I had to put on my mask again, and act the way it was expected of all Slytherins: arrogant, uncaring, cold, cautious, secretive, independent. A play so well learned, I almost never had to think about it. Like it, the role of a rich boy without a care, was a part of me. A part I hated.

Picking up my bag again after a few minute's rest, I headed to the Slytherin fourth-year boy's dormitory only to find it full of the people I secretly loathed: Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Farley Bernett and Blaise Zabini. They were going through my trunk at the foot of my bed. Farley, the only Muggle-born in the entire House, was busy going through my photo album, laughing. He was at the page where I was by the Willow Pond with my kitten, Fiasco, sitting in the flowers on my seventh birthday. Fiasco was killed by my uncle Rodolphus that same day. Bursting into tears (to which the four were doubled over in laughter at) I jinxed Farley, who toppled over, stunned, and ran out, into the bathrooms. I could still hear their jeering laughter in my ears as I cried to the mirror above the sinks, my tears falling down the drain like the rest of my life.

Sincerely,

Draco Lucius Malfoy


End file.
